DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 20 February 2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-4, 7-11, 14-18, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Boehner, U.S. Patent Application No. 2013/0109510, in view of Blanning, U.S. Patent Application No. 2014/0121043, Sudo, U.S. Patent Application No. 2019/0295568, and in further view of Jones et al., U.S. Patent Application No. 2019/0333027. As to Claim 1, Boehner teaches a computerized method for determining an operability status of a ball throwing machine (101) comprising obtaining data from an operational sensor (1305) collected during operation of the machine, paragraphs 0023 and 0039. The sensor may be disposed on the ball throwing machine (on motor), paragraph 0035. The ball launching machine may comprise one or more launch wheels (13) configured to launch a ball by imparting motion thereto, paragraphs 0023 and 0024. The launch wheels may be coupled to a frame (26M), paragraph 0023, and a control circuit (1300) may be configured to control the launch wheels, paragraph 0037. The operability status of the machine may be determined from data collected by an operational sensor, paragraph 0039. Boehner teaches that the machine may provide a ball launching sequence, paragraph 0038, noting a set time delay between ball launches, but Boehner is silent as to a series of ball-launch sequences in accordance with a training program. Blanning teaches a ball throwing machine (10) configured to perform a series of ball-launch sequences resulting in launching a series of balls in accordance with a training program, paragraphs 0016 and 0023, noting a selected drill comprising a selected series of tennis strokes. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to provide Boehner with the performance of a series of ball-launch sequences in accordance with a training program, as taught by Blanning, to provide Boehner with capability of executing a series of ball-launch sequences to yield the predictable result of delivering practice shots in accordance with a training program. Boehner, as modified, is silent as to parsing collected data into segments. Sudo teaches testing a machine by analyzing sensor data (sound data), paragraph 0011. Sudo teaches parsing collected data into segments (frequency bands by time unit) based on variability of collected data, paragraph 0060, noting calculating correlation coefficients to detect abnormality. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to parse collected data into segments based on variability, as taught by Sudo, to provide Boehner, as modified, with collected data representing sounds during a time period of operation, for comparison, to yield the predictable result of facilitating the process of detecting an abnormality. Boehner, as modified, teaches comparing segments of collected data by time unit to detect whether operation of a machine is consistent with expected performance, but Boehner, as modified, does not disclose comparing segments of collected data to signatures of known actions. Jones teaches that sensor data collected in a machine may be stored in memory as correlation data and used in comparison with collected sensor data to determine satisfaction with variability being consistent with expected variability, paragraph 0007, noting satisfaction with the comparison. Data signatures of known actions (reference data) may comprise data collected by an operational sensor (audio microphone) under known operating conditions, paragraph 0078. A timestamp may be associated with each known action, paragraphs 0076 and 0084, noting reference data reformatted for correlation. It follows that data timestamps are match to align normal operating events with detected events, for analysis. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to provide Boehner, as modified, with reference data collected by operational sensors under known operating conditions producing correlation data (reference) parsed in segments and saved in memory, as signatures of known actions for comparing with time based segments of collected event data to detect consistency with expected actions, to yield the predictable result of facilitating the process of detecting whether the ball throwing machine is operating consistently with the set of stored data signatures. The examiner finds that time based data segments would necessarily correlate with actions based on the training program given that the signatures of known actions are collected as sound data during normal operation of the machine, see Jones paragraph 0007. As to Claims 2, 9, and 16, Boehner teaches a motor (11) of the machine spinning a launch wheel at a spin rate configured to impart motion to a first ball at a specified speed, paragraphs 0028 and 0024. Boehner, as modified, teaches that a ball launch sequence may be provided, as discussed above. The examiner finds that the launch of a ball launch sequence may be considered to be a first ball of a launch sequence. As to Claims 3, 10, and 17, Boehner teaches that an operational sensor (1305) may include a current sensor configured to detect current drawn by a first launch wheel, paragraph 0039, noting resistance of motor monitored by sensor. As to Claims 4, 11, and 18, Boehner teaches that collected sensor data may be analyzed by a processor (1325) to detect a problem, paragraph 0039. Boehner, as modified, does not teach that data may be analyzed to detect whether variability in the data is consistent with expected variability. Jones teaches that sensor data collected in a machine may be stored in memory as correlation data and used in comparison with collected sensor data to determine satisfaction with variability being consistent with expected variability, paragraph 0007, noting satisfaction with the comparison. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to determine the operability status of a machine by analyzing collected data to determine whether variability is consistent with expected variability based on operation of the machine, as taught by Jones, to provide Boehner, as modified, with determining operability status of the ball throwing machine by analyzing collected data to detect whether variability in the collected data is consistent with expected variability, to yield the predictable result of facilitating the process of determining whether the ball throwing machine is in operable status. As to Claims 7, 14, and 20, Jones teaches generating an alert (transceiver accessing remote computer system) indicating that the machine is operating abnormally and causing a display of the alert on a display of a network device (remote computer system), paragraph 0007, noting indicating of maintenance issue. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide Boehner, as modified, with an alert to a network device indicating abnormal operation, as taught by Jones, to provide Boehner, as modified, with notice of an issue to yield the predictable result of making an operator aware of abnormal operation when acting remotely. As to Claim 8, Boehner, as modified by Blanning, Sudo, and Jones is applied as in Claim 1, with the same obviousness rationale being found applicable. Further, Boehner teaches a processor (1325) , paragraph 0039. Boehner does not specify a non-transitory computer readable medium. Blanning teaches a non-transitory computer readable medium (24 and hidden button) having instructions stored thereon to cause the processor to perform the claimed functions, paragraphs 0016 and 0018, noting that the memory stick (24) includes instructions for executing a training program by launching a sequence of balls and the internal memory (hidden button) initiates a diagnostic program for the machine. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before he effective filing date to provide Boehner, as modified, with a non-transitory computer readable memory configured as claimed and as taught by Blanning, to provide Boehner, as modified, with a known substitute component for storing the required instructions. As to Claim 15, Boehner, as modified by Blanning, Sudo, and Jones, is applied as in Claims 1 and 8, with the same obviousness rationale being found applicable.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 2 February 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In response to applicant’s argument that data representing normal operations as disclosed by Jones does not equate to data signatures of known actions, the examiner maintains the position that Jones teaches that data may be collected from an appliance under normal operating conditions and stored as reference data to be used for comparison with event data collected during operation of the machine, in order to determine a variation beyond a threshold as evidence of improper functioning. The data must be processed to correlate the event data with the reference data, in order to compare a current function with an expected function. The necessity for correlation discloses that different cycles are present such that the data must be aligned according to time, so that the comparison is made at a consistent stage in the operation of the machine. This teaching corresponds to data signatures representing known actions comprising a training program.
In response to applicant’s argument that Jones does not teach time based ordering of actions, the examiner maintains the position that Jones teaches that reference data may be collected from an appliance and correlated so that it may be used for comparison with collected event data. It is inherent that a machine must be operating in the same phase of its process in order to compare reference data to event data with an expectation of discovering whether the machine is operating without abnormality.
In response to applicant’s argument that there is no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine the references, the examiner recognizes that obviousness may be established by combining or modifying the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention where there is some teaching, suggestion, or motivation to do so found either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 5 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 21 USPQ2d 1941 (Fed. Cir. 1992), and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). In this case, Boehner, as modified by Blanning, provides a disclosure of a ball throwing machine incorporating sensors to collect operating data in a machine running a training program. A person or ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to consider the teaching of Sudo and Jones, which disclose the practice of collecting data from sensors and processing the data to determine whether normal conditions are present. The capabilities of the ball throwing machine may be improved by incorporating the additional processing of data taught by Sudo and Jones to evaluate operation of the ball throwing machine in the same manner.
In response to applicant’s argument that Sudo teaches away from storing reference data, the examiner maintains the position that Sudo does not criticize the practice storing reference data. Sudo is cited for the known practice of parsing collected data in segments for analysis. The fact that the particular application of data analysis in Sudo makes in unnecessary to store reference data does not establish a teaching away from the practice.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN ELLIOTT SIMMS JR whose telephone number is (571)270-7474. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30 am - 5:00 pm - M-F.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nicholas Weiss can be reached at (571) 270-1775. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JOHN E SIMMS JR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3711 13 April 2026
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